Ice Man's 30 gallon reef build.

[Readingexcalibur]

Are you still dosing ammonia?

 

[Ice Man]

Are you still dosing ammonia?

No. Ammonia after three days is at 2 ppm. I will wait until it'll go down to 0.5 ppm and then will dose up to 4 ppm again.
Nitrites are at 2 ppm today.

 

[Readingexcalibur]

Great! Not that is truly matters just yet, but have you noticed any nitrates?

 

[Ice Man]

Great! Not that is truly matters just yet, but have you noticed any nitrates?

I didn't test for nitrates yesterday.
Today's test results
Ammonia: 1ppm
Nitrites: 0.5 ppm
Nitrates: 10 - 20ppm (hard to tell(
So ammo and nitrites have dropped and nitrates appeared! Yay!

 

[kdpuffer]

Nice setup, that canopy looks awesome love the grains in the wood. Congrats on your cycle looks like your almost there, the benefits of adding cured live rock. Definitely following along.

 

[needmorecowbell]

Looks great! I've been building a canopy too. Mine doesnt look nearly as nice though. Any ideas one what is going to go in this tank? Stock, corals?

 

[Ice Man]

On Saturday I dosed up ammonia back to 4ppm. 36 hours later test results are:
Ammonia 0.25ppm
NitrIte 0ppm
NitrAte 20ppm

I am dosing ammonia back to 4 ppm.

Also I want to buy some dry rock today. 40 lb of live rock I got doesn't look like much.

Some water got between background and glass, it looks bad so I have to fix it. Not much room behind fish tank will make it difficult.

 

[Ice Man]

Looks great! I've been building a canopy too. Mine doesnt look nearly as nice though. Any ideas one what is going to go in this tank? Stock, corals?

I am not sure about stocking. Definitely I will get one or two clowns because my 5 year old son already requested "Nemo". Other fish I consider are longnose hawkfish, mandarin goby, six line wrasse, banded coral shrimp. Later I would like to add some corals.

 

[Readingexcalibur]

I am not sure about stocking. Definitely I will get one or two clowns because my 5 year old son already requested "Nemo". Other fish I consider are longnose hawkfish, mandarin goby, six line wrasse, banded coral shrimp. Later I would like to add some corals.

My nano has two clowns, a six line, and a yellow watchman goby. Love them all!

Can I make a friendly suggestion. Please research the mandarin a little deeper. It's not a recommendation rather a need that the mandarin goby has a long established tank. They only eat pods and you would need 6+ months to build a proper colony as the mandarins can eat 150-200 pods a day!

Some claim they have trained there goby to eat prepared meals, however you would still need the pods during the training period.

 

[needmorecowbell]

I have had a few of the fish you want, I'll go through the pros and cons. Clown: fun, pretty, easy (they are part of the damsel family), but they nip at your fingers which gets Annoying. Hawkfish: interesting, bright, good eater, but you won't be able have any inverts. 6 line: sleek, fast, pretty, colorful, but you need to add him last, they can be aggressive, you'll never get him out of the tank unless you take the rock apart. A coral banded shrimp isn't a good idea, they get too big, your Hawkfish might eat it, and it might eat your hawkfish/ other fish lol.

Mandarin: I've had a scooter Blenny, which has the same eating habits, but not as pretty IMO. I took care of it well and bought it eating frozen. I had a fuge with tons of pods but it didn't matter. He went on hunger strike and stopped eating frozen. Not knowing he was spitting out all the mysis i gave him, I went on vacation. I came back to a dead fish with a collapsed stomach. You already know why you want this one, as we all do, but I'd advise against it due to my experience with it.

I don't want this to become one of those threads ranting about not getting a mandarin, so that's the last I'm going to say about it.

 

[Ice Man]

Thanks for all the advices. I will stay away from mandarin then.
If you have any suggestion on stocking 30 gallon then please go ahead...

I just bought 50lb of dry coral rock. Going to wash it and put it in the tank ASAP. Oh, price was right I guess - $64 for 50lb box.

 

[Readingexcalibur]

Id say a pair of clowns, 6 line wrasse (awesome fish!), mabye a yellow watchman goby. Nasarine snails (sand sifters), turban or turbo snails. If you start to see some algae, consider an emerald crab. Mabye 1 or 2 peppermint/cleaner shrimp. Just some ideas.

 

[Ibrahim]

Thanks for all the advices. I will stay away from mandarin then.
If you have any suggestion on stocking 30 gallon then please go ahead...

I just bought 50lb of dry coral rock. Going to wash it and put it in the tank ASAP. Oh, price was right I guess - $64 for 50lb box.

If you can return it do it! It doesn't look very porous so there aren't many places for bacteria and it's really hard to make shelfs and caves for fish and coral. Go to reefrocks.net and look at the rock there. Much nicer and about the same price.

 

[Hondatek]

That's the same rock I used for my tank. Not all the rocks are like that . Some pieces are very light and porous.

 

[Ice Man]

If you can return it do it! It doesn't look very porous so there aren't many places for bacteria and it's really hard to make shelfs and caves for fish and coral. Go to reefrocks.net and look at the rock there. Much nicer and about the same price.

That's true. It is not very porous. I already have 40lb of live Fiji rock so i guess bacteria will have enough space to grow. As long as coralline algae grow it then it's fine with me.

 

[Ibrahim]

That's the same rock I used for my tank. Not all the rocks are like that . Some pieces are very light and porous.

Oh ok but from the pics it looks like blocks lol

 

[Hondatek]

Some are blocks lol so I made those the base and used the lighter stuff on top.

 

[Ice Man]

More pics